This invention relates to a target device for pistol or rifle practice, more particularly, to a device in which the striking of a first target with a projectile resets a second target in the line of fire and vise-versa.
Targets for pistol or rifle practice are well known to the art. Often, these targets are simply fixed paper or cardboard sheets having a design, such as the well known concentric circle surrounding a "bulls-eye" or, a stationary figure such as the silhouette of a criminal or the silhouette of a game animal such as a deer or bear.
In some situations the use of the stationary paper or cardboard targets and the like are not satisfactory since they require removal and viewing to determine a strike by a bullet or projectile or they require that the marksman walk from the shooting station to the target to inspect the target for strikes. If the shooter is a long distance from the target, it is inconvenient and time consuming for the shooter to walk to the target and inspect the target for results. Moreover, if there is one or more marksman shooting, for example, at a firing range or target range, it would be too dangerous for any one marksman to walk toward the target area while the others are still shooting. The shooters must wait until all have finished the round of practice before inspecting the target.
Furthermore, it is beneficial to the marksman to know immediately if he or she has struck the target. This allows for better practice, since immediate feedback helps the shooter improve his or her technique. To that end, the shooters desire to use targets that indicate immediately that the target has been struck. The crudest form of such target would be a bottle or can placed at one end of a shooting range. The shooter can tell immediately if the bottle or can has been struck. More sophisticated targets employing this principal may be used. However, these types of targets have other obvious drawbacks. Once the shooter hits this type of target, perhaps a clay target or some other target which is destroyed upon impact of a projectile, it is obviously broken or destroyed, it can fall over, or be knocked out of the shooter's sight. The marksman must continually replace this type of target during practice session.
To avoid this problem, inventors have developed various types of "resetting" targets. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,348,540 to Briggs provides for an automatic safety target. However, these targets are necessarily small and must be placed at close range or in protective boxes. Furthermore, the reset targets are generally side-by-side and require that the shooter change his or her line of fire from side-to-side depending upon how the target is reset.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,424,632 to Fenton provides a rotating target for small arms practice. The targets rotate as they are struck by a projectile. The device is somewhat complex, has a plurality of moving parts, and appears to provide a resetting target that can appear on a slant or angle (Col. 1, lines 20-22), which can be difficult for the shooter to hit.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,845,609 to Knipper provides another complex reappearing target device having a plurality of moving parts and an intricate mechanism. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 2,561,733 to Foyst requires a meshing gear mechanism and also requires the shooter to swing his or her line of fire to side-to-side to hit the reappearing targets.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,085,993 to Vaughan, 4,917,388 to Marquardt, 3,411,784 to Lawerence, and 4,726,593 to Wade all provide simple mechanisms that allow the individual targets to swing and move when struck by a projectile indicating a successful shot, yet, pivot back into position or swing back into position for another shot. These devices also have notable drawbacks. First, the targets are arranged side-by-side such that they require the shooter to move his or her line of fire from side-to-side to hit the target. Moreover, the shooter must wait for the target to stop swinging and properly align itself before taking another shot. This does not lend itself to practice of rapid fire marksmanship.